


Swim Sideways

by odinswhiteraven



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Day At The Beach, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 20:09:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odinswhiteraven/pseuds/odinswhiteraven
Summary: A fleeting moment of childhood.Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. I do not own the 100. It belongs to Kass Morgan, the producers at the CW, and the wonderful actors who portray Clarke and Bellamy. Like Eliza Taylor and Bob Morley. I also do not own the chapter song that is advertised.





	Swim Sideways

**Author's Note:**

> "Clementine" by Sarah Jaffe

Clarke had been arranging the seashells into a pattern when she met him. She made a mural in the sand, having traced the shapes with her finger: it was a seahorse and the shells were to be its scales.

But then a boy ran through it as he hurtled his whole-body weight into the nearest wave in the ocean.

“Hey!” Clarke yelped. Her blue eyes widened in horror at her ruined art piece. She scowled at him.

The boy didn’t seem to realize what he’d done. He was hooting and howling with laughter as he’d body slammed himself into another wave. Clarke stood up and moved towards the ocean: “Jerk!”

He looked around around for the person who said that to him. The boy had tan skin and messy black hair that clung to the side of his face. There were freckles on his wet skin. His swimming trunks had octopuses on them. 

“Did you hear that noise?” The boy asked her. He looked to the left of him and then the right. “Who said that?”

She couldn’t believe his reaction. They were the only ones near each other on the edge of the water.

“I did!” Clarke snapped. “You just ruined my picture!” She gestured at where it used to be: “See?”

The boy narrowed his hazel eyes at her. “That was you?” He looked to the mess his feet left behind: “Your picture had it coming.” And then he splashed a bunch of cold water onto her. Clarke squealed.

Water trickled down from her blonde hair. She’d spent so long braiding it with her mother in the mirror. The boy gave her the finger and then started swimming out towards open sea. She trembled.

With rage. No one had ever been that rude to her before. Clarke gritted her teeth and went after him. The boy didn’t seem to notice. He was enjoying his day at the beach; he was loving the sea.

She had all the time in the world to wade after him unawares. He splashed about. She pushed him.

Hard. Clarke gathered both her hands and made them flat. She’d turned them into a battering ram.

Aiming for the center of his back, between both his shoulder blades. The boy went flying forward.

Into a rising wave. A torrent of foamy ocean water. When he broke the surface again, his hair rising with the sea, he looked around for the culprit. When he saw it was her, he’d scowled: “You!”

“Me!” Clarke flipped him off with both her fingers. And then she started hurrying back. She heard him coming for her. Like a shark. She’d recently watched “Jaws” with her father. It was terrifying.

She tried to be brave. Tried telling her father that it was no big deal. She wasn’t afraid of anything.

Clarke was lying. What nine-year old girl wouldn’t be afraid of a killer great white eating people?

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl felt shock waves of that fear as she tried sprinting for the shore.

The boy caught up to her. He placed both his hands atop her head and sank his whole body onto her.

He sent them both underwater. Clarke felt water go up her nose. She coughed when she rose back up.

“You!” The girl hacked at him, through it all. She moved her wet blonde hair from over her eyes.

“Me!” The boy squirted a stream of seawater into her face. He spit on her; he got his saliva on her!

She might get cooties! He looked to be around the same age as her. He most definitely carried it!

When the boy saw the look that took up the girl’s face, his smirk turned into horror. She didn’t know what she looked like herself. But it must’ve been scary. Look at how scared the boy looked.

Then he started hurrying back towards the ocean. Away from her. Clarke wasn’t having it. Not this time. He was hers. She sprinted hard, grunting through the waves that bashed into them both.

Both children were moving farther and farther into open water. Towards the big, wide, open ocean.

Clarke tackled him. She wrapped her arms around him and threw her whole-body weight forward.

She sent them sprawling through the water. They were tumbling underneath it all now. Her feet barely scraped the bottom. They started to kick. But then she bounced her feet off the bottom of the sand.

“What is wrong with you?!” The boy coughed out; he shook water out of his hair. “Are you nuts?!”

“You started it!” Clarke sank, so she bounced off the sand beneath them again. “You’re so rude!”

“It was just some stupid picture!” The boy shouted right back at her: “It probably sucked big time!”

“It did not!” Clarke yelled. She sank again. Something seemed to be pulling her. “You’re so mean!”

She was pulled again. It was the water. The water was pulling her away. Away from their beach.

It wouldn’t have been a problem at the time, except she couldn’t swim. She’d promised her parents.

Promised them to stay on the shore, far away from the water. They were putting the cooler into the car. They were leaving soon. Clarke promised them again and again and again that she’d stay. She wouldn’t move.

There was no bottom anymore. No more sand to bounce feet off of. Just a whole bunch of nothing.

She sank again. Longer than before. She tried kicking her feet up. She’d barely broken the surface.

“Maybe if you hadn't called me 'jerk'!” The boy had been saying. He seemed fine. He was swimming.

“Help-” Clarke attempted to say. She sank again. Farther this time. Longer. Then she felt a hand.

The hand gripped her arm. “Are you okay?” It was the boy. “You keep sinking like a fat cork!”

“I’m not fat!” Clarke attempted to say. She pushed him back. Which was stupid because now she was sinking again. Back to drowning. Maybe if he wasn’t such a jerk. “You jerk!” She’d gurgled.

The boy grabbed onto her wrist. “I’m not a jerk!” He snapped: “You’re a jerk!” She sank. “Jerk!”

Clarke heard that last part underwater. When she rose, she’d started crying. Her tears blended in with the sea. It was all his fault. If he hadn’t ruined her picture, she wouldn’t be here. She sobbed.

“What’re you-” The boy asked. “-a baby?” His hazel eyes widened at her terror: “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t swim!” Clarke cried. “I’m sinking!” She trembled with fright as she sank: “I can’t swim!”

“Then why are you in the ocean?!” The boy yelped. He took her arm. She grappled all over him.

“I don’t know!” Clarke started gasping for air, hyperventilating. She’d used him as a raft: “Help!”

Her arms wrapped around his neck. She pressed against his back; the boy tried keeping them afloat.

“I’m trying!” He looked towards the beach. It looked far away. She began sobbing uncontrollably.

“I want my Mommy!” Clarke cried aloud. “I want my Daddy!” She was supposed to learn this summer. How to swim. Her parents signed her up for lessons. They were going to start next week.

“It’s the riptide!” He had panted. He struggled to support her weight. “The waves are pulling us!”

“Help!” The girl tried waving. Her elbow knocked against the boy’s face: “Help us!” She repeated.

“They can’t hear us, dummy!” The boy tried moving back. “They probably can’t see us!” He said.

Clarke clung to him tightly, closing her eyes. She started wailing. He jostled his shoulders to shake her: “Hey!” The boy coughed. Some water got in his mouth. He spat it out. “What’s your name?”

“What?” She sobbed. The girl tried breathing through her nose, snorting for air. She looked down.

“Your name!” The boy shifted his weight, so they faced parallel to the shore. “You owe me that!”

“I owe you?” Clarke shook her head in disbelief. She snorted again. “What’re you talking about!”

“It’s your fault we’re here, dummy!” The boy snapped. “If I die!” He’d jostled her. “It’s on you!”

“No!” The girl protested. She sank her nose into his hair, wiping her mucus on him. “It’s on you!”

The boy was paddling his feet so that they swam sideways. The waves were pushing them. Inward.

“Well, I’m Bellamy!” The tan, black-haired boy spat out some water. “You’d better remember it!”

“You better remember me!” Clarke wiped her nose on him. He smelled like sunscreen: “Clarke!”

Bellamy turned his face towards hers. She tried counting the freckles on his cheeks. But, there were too many.

“That’s a weird name.” He remarked. But Bellamy swam all the same. She wasn’t crying anymore.

Her terror had somehow been replaced with anger: “What kind of name is Bellamy?!” She scoffed.

“It’s French!” Bellamy replied. “It means ‘handsome’.” He shot her a smile. “I’m quite the looker!”

“In your dreams.” Clarke muttered. She rested her chin on his head. They were getting closer to it.

The shore. The girl couldn’t see her parents. But she saw a little girl. With long, black hair. Waving.

“Who’s that?” Clarke asked. The girl was jumping up and down. Waving at them wildly. Crazily.

“My little sister.” Bellamy groaned. “Looks like she finished counting to twenty.” He kept kicking.

His feet. He was carrying her like he was a boat and she some tourist: “Twenty?” She questioned.

“Hide and seek.” The boy said. “I was hiding in the waves.” He jostled her. “Then you happened.”

“You ruined my picture.” Clarke whispered.

“What were you drawing?” Bellamy asked.

“A seahorse.”

“Pffttt.”

“Shut up!”

“At least draw something cool.”

“Seahorses are cool!”

“Make a kraken.”

“A what?”

“It’s like a giant squid. But with a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth.”

“Yuck.”

“You should draw it ripping apart a ship. Draw it killing all the sailors. Eating them. Pooping them out.” Bellamy said. When Clarke gagged, he jostled her again. “Then I’d feel bad for ruining it.”

“I’ll have you know-” Clarke lectured: “-that my seahorse was beautiful. It had shells and then-”

“Don’t forget to breathe.” Bellamy mumbled. He winced when she headbutted him. Clarke rubbed her forehead. That headbutt had hurt. “Ow! Watch-”

“Clarke!” It was her mother. Her father was coming from across the way. There were her parents. But they weren’t as far as they used to be. Bellamy had been swimming them closer and closer. 

He’d gotten them back to the beach. How did he do that? One minute she was crying and the next-

“Looks like someone’s happy to see you.” Bellamy drawled. Her mother was running into the sea.

Clarke felt the ground beneath her feet again. She was back. She was safe. He did that. It was him.

“How’d you do that?” The girl whispered. “We were so far away.” They were in the shallows now.

“Swim sideways.” The boy responded. “If there’s a riptide.” He jostled her. “Learn how to swim first.”

They were both standing on sand again. The water was up to both their chests. Her mother was sprinting towards them both. Waves smashed into her. Into them. Foam had spat every which way.

“Thank you.” Clarke said to Bellamy. Her mother gathered her up into her arms and carried her.

Away from him. Away from the beach. Her father joined them with a towel. He toweled her body.

He never responded to her. Bellamy just gave her a firm nod and winced as his sister came to him.

Enveloping him up with those skinny arms of hers. He hugged her back. She was his responsibility.

That was the last time she ever saw him. They drove away soon after. Her parents thanked Bellamy. Thanked his mother, whose name was Aurora, and his sister, whose name was Octavia. They left.

Clarke gave Bellamy one of the seashells from her seahorse mural. The one he ruined. It was blue.

Blue just like her eyes. She hoped it would help him remember her just like she would remember him.


End file.
